You probably recogniseJohn C Reilly’sface but not his name. A veteran of stage and screen, he is best known for his supporting roles. He played Renée Zellweger’s husband in the movie Chicago, for which he won an Oscar nomination, and was also in The Hours and The Aviator. But in his new movie, Criminal, he plays the lead, an unscrupulous con artist.

In previous movies, you’ve tended to fade into the background. Everyone knows your face but not your name. Does that bother you?

Not at all – it’s by design. I’m happy when people don’t know who I am; it allows me to surprise them as an actor. Hopefully, people just see me as a reflection of my character but don’t really know anything about me.

Why have you chosen to come to the forefront now?

I take whatever comes my way. I love being an actor; it’s what I’ve always done, so the more I get to do it, the better. I was thrilled to get this chance. I made a film years ago, called Heartache. It was about professional gamblers in Nevada. I played the young protégé to an older gangster who took me under his wing. It was interesting to turn the tables in Criminal.

You have an honest face. Why do you think they chose you to play a conman?

I don’t know. Maybe it’s like what I say in the movie: ‘You have something money and practice can’t buy – you look like a nice guy.’

In the movie, your character stitches everyone up, even his family. Is life really like that? Should no one be trusted?

It’s a pretty lonely life. I think that’s illustrated in the movie, too. That’s the price you pay – the wages of sin, if you will. You end up being paranoid and lonely. In a way, Richard [Gaddis, the conman in the film] is like an addict, except his drug is money. As exciting as it is to watch him pull the wool over people’s eyes, you realise at the end of the day how isolating that can be.

Have you ever been conned?

No, not really. When people come up to me on the street with some hysterical story, the first thing I usually think is: ‘What’s this person up to?’ That’s not to say that I haven’t given people like that money just because I felt bad for them. But the big cons in my life have been the emotional ones.

Like love and stuff?

Exactly. That’s much less easy to figure out.

What’s the best scam you’ve ever come across?

Probably unleaded gas – take the lead out and then they charge you for not having it.

Have you ever been so desperate that you wanted to screw over your own family?

No. My father told me when I was young: ‘It takes as much effort, if not more, to be a bad person as it does to be a good person. So you might as well do the right thing because you’ll end up saving energy.’

Heist movies such as Ocean’s Twelve are quite popular now. Why do think that is?

I suppose it’s something to do with the unending allure of easy money. People like games in general. Con movies engage your brain in an intellectual way that more emotional movies don’t.

Do you think people are sick of films with people ripping their clothes off and having sex?

Well, I’m not sick of that. I can’t speak for everybody. There is a reason these things come in waves. It has something to do with people’s paranoia and that’s greater now than ever – this idea that the world is not as it seems. What is presented to you is just the first layer. That’s another reason people find con movies interesting – because you’re allowed a little deeper into the layers.

It could make you really paranoid, though.

Yeah, it made me paranoid when I was making the movie. On set, we were playing a lot of practical jokes on each other. We ended up walking around waiting for them.

What type of practical jokes?

I came across this little arcade downtown that had a machine that sold these little pornographic playing cards. I bought some male porno cards and put them in the back pockets of people on the crew so they would be walking around with these men who were – how should we say it – standing to attention. Then I suddenly realised: ‘Oh my God. It’s just a matter of time before I’m walking around with one of those stuck to my back.’

What’s the trick to conning someone?

Figuring out what they want. It’s who you have to be in order to get them to believe that you can give them what they want. Another title I had for this movie was The Bad Samaritan. Richard looks like he needs help, appeals to people’s sense of charity and decency and then uses it against them. I think, in Richard’s world, if they never realise they’ve been taken advantage of, that’s the best con of all.

You seem to have a gift for being in Oscar-nominated movies. Which movie is going to win the Academy Award for best picture?

It’s going to be The Aviator and it will win for a lot of reasons. It’s a quintessential Hollywood story and the academy is based in Hollywood. It’s a very filmmaker kind of movie.

But Howard Hughes wasn’t beloved in Hollywood when he was alive.

I suppose not. He was beloved by all the women that he slept with. I think the power brokers at the time were not that thrilled with him but I think that everyone now credits him with a lot of innovations in filmmaking and other things.

What next for you – more lead roles or more fading into the background?

How about leading roles that fade into the background? No, the only thing I want to fade into the background is who I am.